one more round of self indulgence - Daniel_Rf's 50 favourite novels

i have read the following, love them all.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John LeCarré
The Haunting Of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Percival Everett
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Hunter, Richard Stark
Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

pop 1280, perdido st station, the plague, and the magic mountain are at the very top of my "to-read" list

invisible man is probably the "best" one but i might just vote for the hunter because it is flawless and i tore through it in like 90 mins without stopping,

I love a lot of these. Mrs. D. is v v good, but not prime Woolf so I voted for Howards End (because that is prime Forster).

I liked it most out of the Woolfs I've read (To The Lighthouse, Jacob's Room - underrated!), but tbf I read it within the past five years, and the others when I was in my early 20's, so that might have something to do with it.

A handful I've read, a bunch I need to read. Ripley gets my vote, as Highsmith generally will.

from the ones i've read i'm torn between Tristram Shandy and Invisible Man

Enchanted April, Elizabeth Von Arnim

I read this last year, very enjoyable.

All this list makes me think is i wish I was a tenth as well read as you

Ditto, plus I wish I had more time to read books (as a colleague of mine recently remarked: "we're English professors; we don't have time to read books").

Of the 15 listed that I've read, I voted Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner. It barely edged out The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson.

Amazing list! I kept reading down it thinking "okay, I"ll definitely vote for that one," and then it would get bumped off the list by something even better. I'll have to go with The Plague, but I'm sorry to give up In A Lonely Place.

I don't like this European (English) tradition of putting the name of the book before the author or the film before the director or the song/album before the artist in lists. It makes it hard to search names and seems like a provocation to me.

That said, Mann's "The Magic Mountain", although a very difficult read, is for me the book of all books, and I'm voting for it. I also would vote for Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" or Lampedusa's "The Leopard"

I've read 8 of these I think and will put a bunch on my list, but I most recently have very fond memories of reading The Doomed City on a trip to Japan, love that one. It sent me on a Strugatsky binge but nothing quite lived up to it.

i will be checking a lot of these out! even considering the more well-known novels i've never read. personal lists from well-read folks here are a treasure. i discovered season of migration to the north by tayib salih from one of them, which was an amazing reading experience.

Several of these are on my tbr list. Not a big reader of literature but I have to vote for "Mrs. Dalloway", which kind of blew me away when I finally got around to reading it a couple of years ago. Never really read a book like it before. I don't know how to describe what moved me, it's probably just the most... skillfully written novel I've ever read, like she does these amazing things with framing and narrative shifts that must have just blown people away when it first came out. there's this... proto-cinematic (?) momentum to it, and Woolf writes like she invented the damn English language and is bringing everyone closer to it. Her greatness reminds me of like bach or nadia comaneci, someone in such a strong command of their medium that they brush up against the limits of expression. idk, it's really something.

A good few I haven’t read on this list but a really nice one, I remember reading Our Man in Havana as a teenager and finding it really funny, I haven’t read it since though, so curious to know if I still do. Vanity Fair is one of my favourite books of all time so that’s my pick, even if Thackeray thought Irish people were subhuman. Just a beautiful work. I’ll return to this poll for future reads I think.

Love the amount of pulp along with more of the classics.

Going with Pop 1280

Ah fuck I forgot Anthills Of The Savannah by Chinua Achebe.

All this list makes me think is i wish I was a tenth as well read as you

For what it's worth what I gain in breadth I lose in depth - Forster is I think the only author in here I've read everything by, and a lot of them I've only read the one book by. Case in point:

It sent me on a Strugatsky binge but nothing quite lived up to it.

:( was looking forward to them all being this good, though I guess Doomed City does have that masterpiece vibe.

I don't like this European (English) tradition of putting the name of the book before the author or the film before the director or the song/album before the artist in lists. It makes it hard to search names and seems like a provocation to me.

Gotta say I am baffled by this complaint. :) It's just how I've always made lists, in English and Portuguese, and no one has ever pointed out to me that it is somehow wrong or confusing - in fact I had no idea it was "European". Coming from a journalistic background putting the authors first seems counter intuitive - it's a list of books, you lead with the important bit, and frankly I do not understand how the positioning of the author name could make a ctrl f search harder or easier.

What's most baffling to me though is the idea that it's a "provocation". Against whom?? For what conceivable purpose???

Uh yeah, what's that all about?

I guess could kinda maybe see that argument if there were multiple books by the same author on the list — which there explicitly aren’t here — but still stfu nerd lol (that’s a provocation)

Lots here that I’ve been meaning to get around to for years and years. Loved mrs Dalloway but it’s been so long since I read it (at school!); spark but not read that one; queneau but for some reason I always resist picking up my English translation of Zazie. Of the ones I’ve read I might go hill house narrowly over invisible man and the hunter

For sure I'd include a Perceval Everett novel in my canon, probably Wounded.

Of these, the ones I have read and *really* liked are
Tristram Shandy
I Am Not Sidney Poitier
Fathers and Sons
The Hobbit
Pop 1280
Our Man in Havana
Solaris
The Plague
Memento Mori

Ones that I have read and think are very good:
Territory of Light
The Doomed City
The Trouble with Lichen

there are some that i didn't like, which i leave to one side, but plenty more that i just haven't read, so a very good list to have!

i would under normal circumstances auto-vote for the magic mountain but it’s also hard to resist voting for in a lonely place

it's a list of books, you lead with the important bit,

This is known as the auteur theory of books, iirc.

I've read fourteen and a half, many too long ago to have a strong opinion on but Excession, The Hobbit, Enchanted April, The Leopard, Solaris and The Magic Mountain are all favourites, I will probably vote The Magic Mountain, will certainly check out some others I haven't read.

Mrs Dalloway said she would list the name of the book first herself

The enthusiasm for Mann on ILX was a tonic so many years ago. I felt like a genuine weirdo loving The Magic Mountain and Joseph and His Brothers. "Tonio Kröger" played a part in my coming out.

Vanity Fair is one of my favourite books of all time so that’s my pick, even if Thackeray thought Irish people were subhuman. Just a beautiful work.

Yeah I learned about this from previous posts of yours. I guess not that surprising for a privileged brit of the time but urgh.

:( was looking forward to them all being this good, though I guess Doomed City does have that masterpiece vibe.

Well, I'd already read Roadside Picnic so I'm not counting that (should go back to it though, I read it absolute ages ago). I read Hard to Be a God, Monday Begins on Saturday, and The Tale of the Troika, all of which were worth reading but didn't have the same magic for me.